The Downhill Lie

March 3, 2008
Hiaasen (Skinny Dip
), an admittedly woeful golfer, recounts his clumsy resumption of the game after a 32-year layoff. Why did he take up golf so long after quitting at the age of 20? “I'm one sick bastard,” he writes. Hiaasen interweaves passages about his return to the game with diary entries covering more than a year and a half on the links. He mixes childhood memories of playing with his father, who died prematurely, with anecdotes, including the time he and a friend ejected an invasion of poisonous toads from his friend's patio with short irons. His analysis of his lessons, hapless rounds and gimmicky golf equipment is hilarious, and his vivid descriptions are vintage Hiaasen, such as golf balls that are designed to “run like a scalded gerbil.” Hiaasen also touches on topics he writes about in his novels and newspaper columns, lamenting the overdevelopment of Florida and skewering crooked politicians and lobbyists prone to lavish golf junkets. He finishes his journey with a detailed round-by-round account of his pitiful play in a member-guest tournament on his home course (his discouragement is cheered, however, when his wife and young son joyfully take up the game). With the satirically skilled Hiaasen, who rarely breaks 90 on the links, this narrative is an enjoyable ride.

June 30, 2008
Everybody knows how funny Hiaasen can be in print, but unfortunately something not so funny happens when he reads his own book about starting up again as a golfer after dropping the sport 32 years ago. Sentences that get a chuckle on the page sound pretentious or flat. Even though Hiaasen is reading his own material, his delivery is not relaxed and sounds stilted and actorish. There's some touching stuff as Hiaasen talks about his childhood memories of playing golf with his father, who died early, and real anger as he talks about how overdevelopment and crooked golf junkets are doing serious damage to his beloved Florida. But your money may be better spent buying several of the author's wacky mysteries—or a lesson from a golf pro. A Knopf hardcover (Reviews, Mar. 3).

February 15, 2008
Hiaasen, the "Miami Herald" columnist and author of some hilarious fiction (e.g., "Striptease, Skinny Dip"), shares his renewed interest in golf in this departure onto the green. He recounts how easy it is to get sucked into the sport, even when trying not to. Better than most, he points out how golfers tend to hope for the quick fix, be it via an instructional tip, new equipment, or even a talisman. What really comes through is how Hiaasen thoroughly and rationally studies an issue such as dimples on a golf ball, realizes that after a certain point the discussion is largely irrelevant, and then buys into the hype anyway. In this, he speaks volumes for all golfers. Written as a diary, Hiaasen's effort can be compared with Turk Pipkin's "The Old Man and the Tee" and Tom Coyne's "Paper Tiger". For sheer entertainment, "The Downhill Lie" is a very good read. The author's fame and fans may drive demand. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 1/08.]Steven Silkunas, North Wales, PA

Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 15, 2008
In the summer of 2005, I returned to golf after a much-needed layoff of thirty-two years. Any golfer knows that those words are a prescription for disaster. And any fiction reader knows that if its Carl Hiaasen speaking, the disaster will be not just disastrous but also hysterically, sublimely, surreally funny. And so it is, as recounted in diary form by the fiftysomething Hiaasen, whose gimpy knees and loopy swing consistently undercut the score-lowering results promised by the high-tech gimcracks andexpensive clubs he gamely employs in the ongoing search for that elusive breakthrough. What makes Hiaasens 577-day diary of hopes denied and dreams deferred so appealing is its everyman aspect: average golfers have a lifetime of frustrations to match Hiaasens telescoped experience, and if we dont have a cadre of famous kibitzers like writer Mike Lupica and golf broadcaster David Feherty to alternately ridicule and support our efforts, we do have our own inner demons, consistently overruling our attempts at positive thinking. Hiaasen, turning serious for a moment while watching his young son pounding away on the driving range, muses, I believe this is how youre supposed to feel with a golf club in your hands: Full of heart and free of mind. Unfortunately, his painfully truthful account reveals all too clearly that constricted of heart and tangled of mind more accurately describes what most of us feel as we prepare to swing.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)